Let’s not beat around the bush here, people: something must be done to circumvent this age-related memory loss thing! For me it started in a generally acceptable everyday occurrence: I couldn’t find my keys.
OK, who hasn’t lost their keys? No biggie, right? Well, it isn’t a major deal until your spouse presents to you – in the shameless guise of a birthday gift – an electronic device that attaches to your key ring. Nestled inside this innocent-looking tiny electronic doohickey is a homing device or some such thing that responds to a signal from its tiny twin electronic doohickey, which you immediately lose by putting it into some random drawer. I mean, this gadget might just as well be named the “Electronic Signal of Shame” because let’s be perfectly clear here: gifts that remind you that you’re losing your mind rank right up there with offerings such as toasters and vacuum cleaners.
Anyway, the general idea is that when you lose your keys you can find them via this secondary device that you now have to try to remember the location of and, assuming you ever find the darn thing, you press various buttons to emit a signal, which then activates the Electronic Signal of Shame attached to your key ring. In my opinion the whole thing is just way-over-the-top too complicated due to the fact that I lost the instruction book months ago. And all right, so I’ve lost my keys once or 87 times – who cares! They always show up eventually. However, once my keys were burdened with the Electronic Signal of Shame, I vowed I would eat glass before I ever lost my keys again, giving my spouse the satisfaction of thinking he’d picked out the most perfectly practical gift ever.
Of course the day eventually came when my keys were MIA. And my ever-vigilant husband instantly recognized the signs: contents of purse dumped onto the table, rummaging around in random dresser drawers, the futile kitchen counter sweep, digging in pockets and between
sofa cushions. (“Lose something?” “..umnfftlostfftmfffthmkeys … ”
“What was that? I couldn’t understand you.” “Shut up!”)
To improve my fuzzy mind, I sought out some so-called “memory aids.” And what better place to look for memory aids than the granddaddy of total recall: the U.S. Memory Championships, which took place in Manhattan earlier this month. To have a go for the title of Grand Master of Memory, hopeful candidates must learn 1,000 digits in less than an hour, the exact order of a shuffled deck of cards in under two minutes and if the player hasn’t suffered a complete meltdown of the cerebral cortex, the precise order of 10 shuffled decks of playing cards memorized in a generous span of 60 minutes. Other fun Memory Championship activities are committing to memory 99 names and faces in 15 minutes and a 50-line poem, also in 15 minutes.
And how is this accomplished? An interview with one memory guru suggests that it works by association of sorts. Face cards become recognizable figures: Tony Danza could be the king of clubs for example. And to memorize your grocery list, associate items on your list with familiar articles around your house or with well-known characters – the more descriptive, the better. Then build a story around it all.
So if I need tomatoes, I think of my red lamp. Toilet tissue becomes Arnold Swarzenegger. (No, I don’t know why, just because.) Ice cream is the flat screen TV. Onions: “Gone with the Wind.” Then I fabricate my story. This is known as “elaborative encoding,” which is a fancy way of saying that the more complex (i.e. bizarre) something is, the easier it is to remember. So when I reach the market, I simply recall that when the Governator visits my house, he likes to turn on my red lamp, flip on the TV and settle back to watch “Gone with the Wind,” ensuring that I will arrive back home without forgetting any of my groceries, right? Well … maybe not. Â
Because I couldn’t recall what the heck my red lamp stood for (apples? tomatoes? toadstools?) I moved on to another method of memory retention known simply as the “MindSpa.” Call me shallow, but going to a spa is about the most fun you can have without breaking any laws so I was already shouting, “Sign me up!” But, tragically, the “MindSpa” wasn’t quite what I had envisioned.
For a significant cash outlay, I could throw on a specially designed pair of glasses that deliver flashing lights and pulsating sounds designed to enhance my alpha and beta states. The goal is to encourage new pathways in my brain. Oh – and induce seizures in people with undiagnosed seizure disorders or epilepsy although that isn’t, technically speaking, an actual goal. But the Web site claims that the MindSpa is “based upon solid scientific principle.” Peachy. And a testimony by “Jane R.” of Beaufort (Beaufort?), South Carolina, proclaims, “This is the best money I have ever spent!” OK, I admit I’ve never divided my money up into the “best” or the “worst” or even “middle-of-the-road” money – money is money, but I think I’m getting off track here. Must be my faulty memory.
So hopefully I will age gracefully and the process won’t be too detrimental to my mental acuity because the word association thing is hopeless, and I sure don’t want to hang out in my living room resplendent in some dorky goggles that spew light and sound at me while I eagerly await a few new pathways in my grey matter.
In the meantime, if you happen to run into Tony Danza, ask him if he’s seen my keys.
Gale Hammond is a 23-year Morgan Hill resident. Reach her at Ga*********@*ol.com.
